Ballmer Talks the Walk But Keeps Door Open

Posted by: Rob Hof on May 01

In Steve Ballmer’s town hall meeting/call this morning, reported on Silicon Alley Insider, the Microsoft CEO said he wouldn’t pay a penny more than Yahoo is worth. He didn’t say, however, that he wouldn’t pay more than his current offer. All signs still point to quiet negotiations going on for a deal in the low to mid-30s a share. Wouldn’t be surprised, if Yahoo keeps stalling, to see Microsoft launch the proxy war, but it’s hard to see it taking a walk just yet, if ever—though Yahoo investors seem to be betting today that’s more of a possibility, as they knock the stock down a bit on a big up day for the overall market. If Ballmer were going to walk, I think he would have walked already, instead of just talking about walking. But as Kara Swisher says, in a post saying that something could happen at 1 p.m. Pacific today, Ballmer could easily take a hike for awhile to show Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang who’s boss.

Meanwhile—and I admit that this is really why I wanted to do this post, in the absence of real news—get a load of this wicked quote at the end of this post on Portfolio.com from a money manager who asked not to be named (can’t imagine why):

“It’s like the third marriage of two B-movie stars. It may not really be what either of them needs, but they can’t think of anything better to do.”

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